【Terms of service】

Bees in the U.S. are Terms of servicemore endangered than ever, requiring protection under the Endangered Species Act for the very first time back in October.

Now a college student in Georgia is showing the world just how environmentally vital these creatures really are -- by creating a bee drone that pollinates flowers.

SEE ALSO: National Geographic's 'Origins' is like 'Cosmos' but about the nature of human civilization

Anna Haldewang, a 24-year-old senior at the Savannah College of Art and Design, created a black and yellow device called Plan Bee as a design project for a class.

It's a single prototype that's made out of foam, plastic and a set of propellers that takes it into the air. When you flip the hand-sized drone upside down, it looks like a flower with six little sections that mimic petals. Those sections each contain tiny holes that the drone uses to suck in pollen. From there, the drone stores that pollen and later releases it during cross-pollination.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

For now, Haldewang's design project hasn't been mass-produced or marketed. But she has high hopes for the prototype. Since her invention does all the great things a real-life bee does, it could one day be used as an educational tool for humans.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

"I would love to see people use it in their backyards and even create custom gardens with it," Haldewang told CNN. "With an actual bee, it's so small you don't notice it and how it's pollinating flowers. With the drone you can see how the process works."

The pollination that bees do is essential for flowers receiving the nutrients they need and, thus, for the food chain to continue functioning properly. And there's some pretty important environmental benefits to this routine process of nature. For one, pollinated flowers release breathable oxygen into the air during photosynthesis. Aside from this cleaner air, the flowering plants also help water and soil in some pretty cool ways.

"Flowering plants help to purify water and prevent erosion through roots that holds the soil in place," states the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, adding that the actual foliage of these plants offers a buffer that protects the ground during heavy rainfall.

This isn't the first time the magical pollinating abilities of bee has been mimicked by robots.

This isn't the first time the magical pollinating abilities of bee has been mimicked by robots. Just days ago, the results of a Japanese study about bee drones were published in the academic journal Chem.

Haldewang, an industrial design student, first came up with the idea to make an artificial bee when her professor assigned a project that needed to be self-sustainable and help the growth of plants.

Right now the Plan Bee drone may be seen as more of an educational tool, but that could change one day, according to Victor Ermoli, dean of the school of design.

"The design is self-explanatory and it offers a very clever solution," he told CNN. "It could conceivably be used in large-scale farming, even in hydroponic farming."

---

Featured Video For You

---

Finally the perfect kitchen invention for people who hate making salads

---

Topics Nature

• Deals
• Tech
• Entertainment
• Social Good
• Life
• Shopping
• Digital Culture
• Games

• Patched Desktop PC: Meltdown & Spectre Benchmarked
• The Apple Event, brought to you from a better world than this one
• See all the new Apple Watch faces in one video
• '76 Days' puts you in the thick of the pandemic in Wuhan: Movie review
• Stablecoin bill advances in U.S. Senate as Trump critics call to end his crypto dealings
• Tourists explore exactly what not to do when you see a wild bear
• Ladies, FINALLY there's 'beer for her' and it even comes in a pretty bottle
• Apple Watch Series 6 puts an emphasis on tracking blood oxygen levels.
• NYT Strands hints, answers for May 2
• The military could buy a lot for the price of its Trump Tower rental

• Redux: Pevear and Volokhonsky, Connell, Coakley
• The Art of Unpacking a Library
• The Hamburger: An American Lyric
• Fable is the ultimate social media app for readers
• “What the Foucault?” and Other After
• Different Forms of Illumination: An Interview with Hermione Hoby
• Cooking with Ursula K. Le Guin
• Best Black Friday deals at Best Buy: TVs, laptops, headphones, and more
• Bumble's State of the Union reports a 'reality gap' about gender equality
• Orgasms trigger my endometriosis: The sex lives of people with endo

• Amazon Prime Grubhub deal: Save $10 off orders of $20 or more
• Apple quietly improves terms for AppleCare+
• Elon Musk reveals what his tunnel under LA has to do with Mars
• Apple unveils eighth
• Best JBL deal: Save $80 on JBL Xtreme 4 portable speaker
• Netflix's 'The Devil All the Time' is an overheated mess: Movie review
• During 'Made in America Week', Mar
• The Jane Club wants to be a 'matriarchal oasis' and it just might succeed
• Best Kindle Unlimited deal: Get 3 months of Kindle Unlimited for 99 cents
• Quiz tells Kim Kardashian she's actually more like Chrissy Teigen than Kim Kardashian

• Best robot vacuum deal: Save $140 on roborock Q7 Max Robot Vacuum
• Chinese drivers hate that new car smell, so Ford is trying its best to get rid of it
• Apple unveils eighth
• Reporters have lots to say about Sean Spicer's resignation
• Reality Distortion Field: 10 Things Apple Won't Directly Say But We'll Infer About the iPhone X
• See all the new Apple Watch faces in one video
• Teens are now dunking on random basketball goals and speeding off in the #DriveByDunkChallenge
• Google Search features new tool for pandemic shopping
• Things Intel Needs to Fix
• Are Apple One plans a good deal? We crunched the numbers to find out.